Serape 1830-1860 Saltillo During the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, a number of weaving centers flourished in northern Mexico that produced brilliantly colored, finely woven wearing blankets, or serapes, for the affluent clientele of prosperous mining communities and sprawling cattle and sheep ranches. Saltillo in the state of Coahuila, more than 500 miles north of Mexico City, was the most famous of these textile manufacturing towns; its name gradually become associated with any fine blanket of the region, although other towns, including San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí, also produced good quality serapes.The origin of the serape as a distinctive item of outer clothing for men is unclear. Not indigenous to Mexico, it is nonetheless part of the textile tradition that developed in Mexico during the colonial period. Both native American and European elements went into it. In Aztec Mexico, a smaller rectangular manta, or man's we